Well, well...it's Dean Friedman
By Tony Watts - Editor - 29/06/2007
I was one of the hundreds of thousands of people who rushed out to buy the first, eponymous Dean Friedman album in 1977 on the strength of hearing the soaring, ecstatic Ariel… “I met a young girl, she sang mighty fine, Tears on my Pillow and Ave Maria…” I wasn’t disappointed. Just 22 he may have been at the time but he seemed to have sprung fully grown into the adult world of arty, folk rock – thoughtful lyrics, wry observations and a voice that seemed to burn its way into your consciousness.
“It might have seemed like I was just suddenly there,” he says. “But I’d been writing, singing and making demos since I was 15. I had a wall covered with rejection letters from recording companies. By the time the album came out, it seemed to me like it had been a long time!”
The second album tumbled straight after it. “Well, Well, said the Rocking Chair”, if anything, was even better. OK, Lucky Stars is schmaltzy, but Shopping Bag Ladies and I’ve Had Enough take you well beyond the boy meets girl, boy argues with girl/ makes up schtick. These are keenly observed social comments.
But in 1981– just four years on from launching himself into the music world – Dean hit the buffers. “Rumpled Romeo came out, and we released McDonalds Girl as a single. But people like the BBC didn’t like it – they said it was a commercial plug. Perhaps they thought people would listen to the record and rush out and buy lots of burgers.”
The result was being banned and soon after, Dean found himself without a record label and promoter. It was another 17 years before he released another album.
“I never stopped writing or playing music,” he says. “I stopped touring until the kids got big enough to carry their own luggage. But I was doing other things as well – getting involved in all sort of multi-media stuff.”
In fact he was helping to blaze the way in virtual reality, having seen and fallen in love with the technology and creating the first game – and the music to go with it. He also kept his hand in writing film and television music – including the theme tune for Boon. He wrote the definitive manual for synthesizers. But for his music fans, it seemed like Dean Friedman had disappeared off the planet.
But curiously the record that caused him so much grief in 1981 helped him re-stake his claim in the public consciousness. McDonalds Girl was covered by Canadian band Bare Naked Ladies and then Norwegian band Blender. Suddenly that track was taken up by acapella bands and choirs. “It’s amazing,” says Dean. “Go on Youtube and there are loads of covers on there!” And it was the internet that reconnected him to his fan base.
“I didn’t have a recording contract but I had a website with lots of fans visiting. They persuaded me to release my new material – and their pre-orders helped fund it.” Dean was, astonishingly, back literally by public request and Songs for Grown Ups (1998) showed that none of the talent had evaporated in the intervening years. “I had always been writing new material,” he says, “so Songs for Grown Ups – which is a double album, is like the ‘best of’ from those years.
“Sitting down and writing a new song is always a challenge. But I only tend to write the songs that somehow I feel need to be written. Of course, the songs have changed over the years. I’ve got a wife and two kids. I’m not writing about teenage love any more!”
The success of that album encouraged him to start touring the UK again, where – as he readily admits – he has enjoyed more success here than in his home country. “It's so much easier to come to the UK,” he says. “It’s smaller. I can book venues and publicise them for far less than I ever could in the States. And I’ve always sold as many records here as over there.”
More tours followed – a total of five in the last six years, and in between other albums have followed: The Treehouse Journals – which was very much in the mould of previous albums – and last year Squirrels in the Attic… which definitely wasn’t.
“No that is a very different album,” he concedes. It carries a warning to anyone who might be easily offended, and a descriptor of “Comedy Songs for Adults”. They are witty, acerbic takes on life, including a playful ode to Monica Lewinski, a lament on the re-election of George W Bush, and an environmental comment piece called “What a Pickle”. Oh, and a track describing the covert pleasures of smoking cannabis.
As he readily concedes, that song has posed him some problems. There was a suggestion on his UK tour that cannabis seeds might be handed out to the audience. That’s not technically illegal, but that wasn’t how the people who manage the venues saw it. The whole tour faced shut down until the idea was dropped.
The songs make for a delightful sorbet between his lusher material, and he acknowledges his debt to other satirical songsters such as Randy Newman, Tom Lehrer and Pete Seegar. “It’s an album that has been very satisfying to make,” he says. “This is a period of great turmoil in the world. It’s too easy to feel helpless, as if you can’t change anything. But you can, at the very least, articulate things as a songwriter.”
His latest material is all available through his website, although for his earlier albums you’ll have to go through Amazon. “I still don’t have control of that material,” he says. But hopefully I will in 2013!” In between, vinyl versions of his early records are now collectors’ items.
Meanwhile, through the internet and his tours he is not only reconnecting to his old fan base, but acquiring a new one. “People of all ages are coming along,” he says, “and in increasing numbers. Which is good – as I’m financing my tour myself!”
You can catch up with Dean’s tour dates on the link below. And if you come back onto this site over the next week we will be announcing a competition where you can win a pair of tickets to many of his UK gigs.
TOUR DATES
July
7 Dublin Draiocht Theatre
8 Belfast Empire Music Hall w/special guest Brian Houston
11 Wexford Hotel Rosslare, Rosslare Harbour
15 South Shields Mouth of the Tyne Festival
17 Durham Gala Theatre w/special guest Jane Taylor
18 Leicester The Musician
19 Manchester Royal Northern College of Music - Studio Theatre
20 Leeds Morley Town Hall
21 Liverpool St George's Hall
22 Wolverhampton Civic Bar w/special guest Jane Taylor
25 Southsea The Cellars
26 Burgess Hill Martlets Hall (moved from Clair Hall)
27 Deal Astor Theatre
28 London Bloomsbury Theatre
29 Nantwich Acoustic Festival of Britain
31 Henley-on-Thames The Crooked Billet
August
1 Banbury Mill Arts Centre w/special guest Jane Taylor
3 Clapham nr Bedford Rhythm Festival
4 Richmond Richmond Live! Festival
5 Wickham Wickham Festival
8 Aberdeen The Tunnels
10 Glasgow Mitchell Theatre w/special guests Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre
11 Edinburgh Royal Museum - Lecture Theatre
12 Inverness Ironworks
17 Glenfarg Bein Inn